Photovoltaic (PV) plant failures have a significant influence on PV plant security, reliability,
and energy balance. Energy losses produced by a PV plant are due to two large causes: failures
and inefficiencies. Knowing the relative influence of e...
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Photovoltaic (PV) plant failures have a significant influence on PV plant security, reliability,
and energy balance. Energy losses produced by a PV plant are due to two large causes: failures
and inefficiencies. Knowing the relative influence of energy losses due to failures and energy
losses due to inefficiencies on the PV plant energy balance contribute to the optimization of its
design, commissioning, and maintenance tasks. This paper estimates the failure rates, grouped by
components, and the relative impact of the failures on the PV plant energy balance through real
operation and maintenance follow-up data of 15 PV plants in Spain and Italy for 15 months. Results
show that the influence of failures in energy losses of all analysed PV plants is low, reaching a
maximum value of 0.96% of the net energy yield. Solar field energy losses only represent 4.26% of all
failure energy losses. On the other hand, energy losses due to inefficiencies have represented between
22.34% and 27.58% of the net energy yield.
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